The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1887-02-19
SONGS OF THE ri u E6.
Where Nearly All the Nlodern
Ballads Come Froua.


out of seven notes are built all tn
songs that have ever been sung
New songs by the score are write
every day in the year. but the sevel
little notes. warped. twisted an,
tantalized, repeated and worked il
combination. over and over, mus
furnish all the alleged melodies.
Is there any such element a
originality in song ,o-day?" asked
a Mail man of u professor Of music
Certainly, the old masters hav,
cleaned the field with great thor
oughness, but there are men toilinl
to-day and doing splendid work
with the seven notes
lis there not more plagiarism
than originality in the common run
of popular songs?"
"Yes, / think there is. You have
heard Joe Emmett sing Love of the
Shamrock it is a musty and ven
cradle Church hymn revived anc
reyamped. Byron's words:
Maid of Athens. ere we part.
Give, o, give me back my heart.
were set to tune which will outlivt
the centuries. You hear the melO-
dy now in When the Robins Nest
again Krohn, famous German
song writer, produced 'The Cava-
lier's Whisper, and copyrighted it.
The copyright having expired, along
comes the actor, w. J. Seaman, and
Incorporates it in
Peek-a-boo, I'm onto you
see you hiding there.
Three years ago that old chestnutty
air took the country by storm.
Seaman, of course, sings ii in faster
time by making eight notes out of
quarters.
Twenty years ago an English
song-writer produced:
There was a young man on the flying ira
His movements were graceful the girls he
did please.
In 'Adonis' DiXey revives The
Flying Trapeze' in It's English,
You Know" But here is an in
stance of positive PROCLAMATION
Mendelssohn's magnificent oratorio
of st. Paul has a chorus entitled
How Lovely are the Messengers
The man who wrote 'Billee Taylor
revives the music of that chorus in
All on Account of Eliza"
"What proportion of the ballads
Of the day are thefts?"
"Over half of them. A superb
funeral march by Chopin is now
heard in Somebody's Coming When
the Dewdrops Fall To the Blue
Bells of Scotland music you are
requested to Wait Till the Clouds
Roll By" The chorus of 'Ameri-
cas- Emblem is stolen from Ira ID.
Sankey's Pull for the Shore Cla-
rabel's You and l. is doing duty
as Twinkle, Little Stars
"In 1864 l was in New York,
and going one night into the Tam
many theater, | heard Dan Bryant !
sing Shoe Fly" The refrain was
Shoe fly, don't bodder me.
For belong to company c.
In two weeks every street arab
was singing or whistling Shoe Fly:
] feel feel, feel,
That's what my mother said;
The angels pouring 'lasses down
Upon dis darkeys head
"Two months later the country
was delirious over this flimsy bal
lad. Six months later it was dead.
From 1861 to 1865 when This
Cruel War Is Over was sung in
every home North and South. 1t
crossed the ocean and became pop
ular in England:
Dearest love. do You remember.
When we last did meet;
How you told me that you loved me,
kneeling at my feet?
1.-The melody into which those
words were welded was written
years before the war. a young mu-
sic teacher in Brooklyn visited
cemetery one day, and
upon his return jotted down the
notes to little song which he en-
titled: Darling, Meet Me In the
Greenwood The modest fellow,
after writing the music and chorus,
placed the manuscript in his desk,
where it remained for seven years.
In 1861, while looking over some
old papers, he found the Greenwood
song, and soon had it on the mar
ket as Dearest Love, Do You Re-
or, When This Cruel
War Is Over Talk about success
1t sold faster than Shoe Fly and
remained a favorite for five years."
"What did the composer realize
out Of it?"
Very little, / am sorry to say.
lie died in Brooklyn, poor, about
ZEN years ago. His name was Henry
Tucker. He also wrote Genevieve'
md other sweet ballads. He was
Ill music, poor fellow, and up to a
week or SO before his death would
lit at a piano and try to sing, with
his cracked and plaintive falsetto
ones"
what song has been financially
most successfully"
"Grandfather's Clock; : it nctted +,
k2O OO0v .